Monday, July 23, 2007

On dealing with the possessed

Back when I was a dispatcher there was a guy working in another headquarters who was an EMT, and he'd occasionally tell a story about some run he'd made. This one made him a bit more concerned with the idea of The Devil.

They'd received a call from the local police for a mental case they needed transport for to the hospital that handled such cases. They arrived just as four slightly worse-for-wear cops had gotten the subject in question somewhat subdued, and they got him on the gurney and cuffed on both sides with no problem and headed for the hospital.

He was sitting in the back watching the guy when he turned his head, looked at the EMT and said, in a flat voice, "I am Satan".

"Ok dude, that's fine, whoever you want to be." He'd dealt with a lot of somewhat to really messed-up people by now, so no big deal.

Guy(hasn't blinked since he said that) repeated, with slight pauses to emphasize, "I.. am.. Satan." Flat voice, absolutely no emotion and still not blinking.

"That's fine, it's ok, we're almost there." Getting just a touch nervous now as the guy tried to sit up. he seemed to notice the cuffs for the first time and laid there staring at the one on his wrist closest to the EMT. Then he started flexing his arm. Not jerking, just a steady rise until he reached the end of the chain and then kept going, very slowly.

EMT was getting very nervous now because this guy was freaking him out, and, hmmm, it almost looked like the frame of the gurney where the cuff was looped was deforming just a touch, and the guy was still lifting. At this point he was sliding to the back of the ambulance where the extinguisher was and called to the driver to get ready to stop. "Why?" was answered with "Just get ready!"

Ting.

That was the sound of the cuff chain breaking. As the guy sat up and started lifting his other arm the EMT yelled "STOP!" and braced himself, driver hit the brakes, inertia surprised the subject and threw him flat, and just as they came to a stop the EMT sprayed the guy in the face, threw open the door and jumped out. Landing on the hood of the following police car that'd almost rear-ended the ambulance. He looked at two shocked faces and yelled "He broke the cuffs!" Both officers jumped out and into the back of the ambulance, he and the driver joined in and in a couple of minutes they had him secured again, this time with two cuffs on each arm. And this time one of the officers rode in back the rest of the trip, which was made with remarkable speed.

They got to the ER, took the guy inside to a room and began to relax. Until the doctor walked in, took one look and said "Take those handcuffs off him."

Chorus of "No!"

"I said take them off! I will not have a patient chained in my ER."

Lead officer took out his keys, took off the handcuff key, tossed it to the doctor and said "You do it." And both officers left. The EMTs looked at each other, and followed.

I asked him if he knew what happened after that, he said no, didn't go back to that hospital before he changed jobs a short time later. I tend to think the doctor may have had a rush of intelligence to the head and decided to sedate the guy before unlocking him; otherwise, it'd probably have been on the news when a patient remodeled the room and some of the staff.

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